The travelling beer festival kicks off in Chico, California the home of Sierra Nevada and travels East to west across the country finally ending in Mills River, North Carolina for the Grand Opening of Sierra Nevada’s newly built East coast brewery, I got in touch with Sierra Nevada’s Ryan Arnold via email and asked him about the tour “We mapped out a tour path that landed in or near the homes of some of our collaboration partners, and we know our friends at Allagash will be awesome hosts for the kickoff of the East Coast leg. And of course New England is churning out some exceptional craft talent, so that’s going to be one fantastic day in Portland.” Here is the full schedule of stops:

The Brewfest is featuring some of the biggest names in craft brewing, many of the brewers who have already signed on for the Portland, Maine stop are not normally founds on the shelves here, including 3 Floyds, Bells Brewery, Cigar City, Firestone Walker, Hill Farmstead, Ninkasi Brewing, Oskar Blues and Russian River to name a few. The Portland stop of course will features some homegrown talent including Allagash, Geaghan Brothers Brewing, Baxter Brewing, Shipyard, Gneiss Brewing and more. There are currently 37 breweries listed for the Portland stop but Sierra Nevada’s open invitation to all U.S. Breweries will almost certainly inflate that number before August 1st. Tickets are currently on sale, general admission tickets are $65 and designated drivers tickets are $30, each venue will be capped at 5000 attendees.

I reached out to Sean Sullivan, Executive Director of the Maine Brewers Guild via email and asked him about the Brewfest. “The Maine Brewers’ Guild was approached by Sierra Nevada last fall about partnering on this event and we thought a lot about whether we wanted to partner with an out-of-state brewery on a brew festival this summer. Ultimately, our board looked at the track record that Sierra, and specifically their founder/owner Ken Grossman has had in our industry and the vision for this celebration of American craft beer, and realized this was a great fit.” Sullivan Said “If you think the Beer Camp tour stop already looks good – stay tuned. Sierra is putting all of their resources in to making this event an epic party and ensuring beer lovers from all over get to try beers they’d never otherwise be able to taste. This will be one for the ages…”

The Beer Camp Across America Festival Tour coincides with the this year’s Sierra Nevada Beer Camp release, bigger and badder than ever before, Sierra Nevada teamed up with 12 different breweries to create 12 different beers for this years mixed 12 pack. Portland, Maine’s Allagash Brewing Company is one of the 12 brewers who collaborated with Sierra Nevada, creating Myron’s Walk Belgian-Style Pale Ale. Containing 10 bottles and 2 cans this year’s Beer Camp 12 pack will be available throughout the U. S. sometime this summer.

Sierra Nevada’s Beer Camp across America Tour will be a very popular beer tourist attraction this summer, most definitely drawing crowds from around New England and beyond. Sierra Nevada is selling tickets stop by stop and by a full tour pass for those who want to follow the tour across country. I would urge anyone from outside of Portland who’s planning to attend this festival to book a hotel as soon as possible, the Portland stop also coincides with the Beach to Beacon race in Portland so rooms will be limited.